Evaluating place cell detection methods in Rats and Humans: Implications for cross-species spatial coding
Fig 5
a) Place Field Components. Simulated place fields are generated by combining three components: Peak - Gaussian-shaped firing rate profile, Baseline - constant firing rate across space, and Noise - random fluctuations in firing rate. The final place field (right) is produced by summing these components. b) Field Properties. Place field tuning parameters are varied across neurons to model population-level diversity. Peak - modulation of peak firing rate, Base - adjustment of background firing rate, and Width - spread of the place field, define each neuron’s trial-averaged spatial tuning profile. In contrast, Noise - random fluctuations added to the firing rate, varies across trials, introducing realistic trial-to-trial variability in field expression. c) Trial-Level Field Consistency. To assess within-neuron reliability, we compute two metrics: Place Field Consistency (left) quantifies the spatial stability of peak firing across trials, while Presence Ratio (right) measures the fraction of trials in which a detectable place field is expressed, reflecting tuning persistence over time.